Hello comrades and welcome to the third improvement megathread of February!
I hope everybody is ready to charge forward next week. 
As usual, some discussion ideas:
- Do you want to share something you’ve done in the previous week? Everything counts, nothing is too small.
- What would you like to do next week?
- Which aspect are you currently focused on improving?
- Do you have any streaks? For example, “sober for one day.” Feel free to post your streak every day in this thread.
- If you don’t have a continuous streak, did you manage to abstain from something for a day or more?
- Did you come across some useful information or resource that might help others?
Good luck with your goals! :unity:
mokey drum practice
Rebound and rolls:
[v] Four full strokes and then drop the stick, keep hand shape and looseness, let it bounce. 140-145bpm. I think I’m gonna keep doing this until I hit 200BPM.
[v] Four Full Strokes, let it bounce only three times. 140-145. 10 Minutes. 150 feels like a good point to stop and move to four bounces.
Foot technique:
[v] Spring off, heel down. I think I’m not using the rebound enough on my left foot. 8th notes at 85-100 bpm range.
[v] Heel down 50BPM. At this tempo I can use good technique and keep it consistent. I’m also getting some muscle burn in areas I think I’m missing.
[v] Full leg. 140-150. I’m about max out here, maybe work on heel toe.
[v] Ankle 165-150 going down. Yesterday I crushed 155 but struggled with 165 and 150. Cant wait til i have this all down.
Groove Studies: [v] Jazz ride with Bass Drum. I’ve been working on my two beat feel as well, quiet upstrokes on 2+4. I’m focusing on shuffle pattern, + ah and just the + of the triplets this week.
[v] Rhythm Scale using Benny Greb app 6p bpms. 10 mins. [v] Benny Quarter note trips 5 mins 2 measure rest [v] Benny Quarter notes 5 mins 2 measure rest [v] Benny sextuplets 5 mins 2 measure rest
Too lazy to write it all out, I went back and made sure I could play these rhythms cleaning with the click in constantly and with every other measure dropping out. Now I’m trying to get 2 measures, after I get that good enough I’m going to drop the tempo down to 50. Goal is 30 BPM, clean rhythmic scale with the metronome playing for one bar and out for two.
Listening/Ride Cymbal:
Going to listen to Smokin’ at the Half Note with my friend today.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0q2VleZJVEmhGT8b7NQBIRHVjI-jDBBc
spoiler
My ankle technique issue has to be im just not using the rebound enough, its so clear how im unable to get the pedal to utilize the spring on my left and how proficient i am with my right
told myself last week to go to the gym for 2 hours, made it for 3:15 on the elliptical plus another half on the rowing machine. I also am trying to read about 40 pages a week with a close fried of mine but i completely whiffed on that this week. I don’t even remember what prompted it but i kind of just… went over some ancient childhood trauma i tried burying and tried to see why that makes me feel the way i do about things today. Doing that made me feel a lot better about myself and even seemed to make me want to drink less but i was way too distracted by those thoughts to really read about Marx writing about Ireland
roll call:
@SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net
If anybody else wants to be added to the roll call, just let me know
Do me! I’ve made a bit of progress today myself! (See my recent post)
Glad to have you with us comrade! I read your post, congratulations on your progress
man fuck living in my parent’s basement. i’m finally actually looking for a real ass place to live. maybe it’s not much but i responded to a craiglist listing. i got a friend of mine who said they’d be down to be roommates at some point so I talked to them on discord about possibly planning that. Future is finally looking good for once
This week was kinda stressful but I managed to keep up with most of my habits. I tracked almost all of my meals for the second week in a row and continued losing weight. I walked a lot, around 7600 steps per day according to my app. I went hiking with a friend on Saturday. Overall it wasn’t a great week because it was stressful but I’m glad that I still managed to make some progress.
Had some sex and it fucked with my sleep. I’m gonna try to find a way to fit in a sex life without missing my bedtime.
Practiced piano, I have a solid version of a song to sing amd play, and I’m gonna try and build on that with some more songs. Maybe I can go to an open mic as well to build performance confidence.
My relative’s health is deteriorating and it’s pretty sad. I think if we change his circumstances it could help though… this holding pattern isn’t enough. It’s gonna need to be a bit drastic.
Oh, I forgot the best news! I have three new students! I’ve been bringing it up when people ask me about my work.
I finally forced myself onto Hinge even tho I am very anxious about dating. Now to get myself to express interest towards anyone.
My sleep continues to have Big Problems but I think I know how to fix it.
I think that Sleep Foundation is a good resource for sleep info. Also check out Matthew Walker, he wrote that one popular book about sleep and guested on a bunch of podcasts. I listened to some of those episodes and found it compelling enough to go sleeping on time lol
